12 week old terrible sleeper hoping to pick up self-soothing tips & stop co-sleeping (long post)

[cityangel]

Our 12 week old is a good little boy and generally content

Up until now we frustratingly thought he just needed less sleep than most babies as he goes for hours at a time without sleep. Then we realised he was sleeping during breastfeeding? He is on one of the lowest weight percentiles so we didn't want to discourage any potential milk intake or introduce a dummy.

Developmentally he needs to have breaks between feeding. He is exclusively breast fed and the only thing that seems to knock him out is EBM bottles which are hard to generate. We want to be able to get him to sleep from a sleepy state rather than relying on him out cold (through exhaustion)

Although he sleeps less than the average baby, its clear now that we haven?t helped him to learn any other ways of self soothing than suckling. As he becomes a bigger baby, particularly with growth spurts this is a problem.

Also, I'd like us to stop co-sleeping. I don?t get much sleep, ds is getting feisty and will only suckle properly when I am upright. I want ds to sleep in the same room as us (in his cot) until 6 months and dh is very supportive but struggling to function, particularly worrying given his daily commute involves driving lots.

Any personal experiences, self-soothing tips, moving away from co-sleeping ideas you are willing to share would be really appreciated.

[cityangel]

bump am desperate for ideas

[moocowme]

have you tried a bedside cot? what about trying shush/pat to get him off when sleepy after a feed? Also you may want to look a little at his routine he should be feeding nearly every 3-4 hours with about a 1-2 hour sleep in between in the day. are you tanking him up in the evenings?

[poppy34]

agree with moocowme - the sleep thing may be ltrying as he is overtired - they tend to fight sleep at that ge but do need a nap of some kind every 2 hours and often need to sleep earlier thanyou think in evening (it was revelation when moved bedtime an hour earlier as cut right down on the evenings of hell with wailing). Re cot, when you do it have you try something that smells of you /dh to help settle him into the cot. Also you could try it in day when you have more energy to do it.

also re feeding - if struggling to generate have you got advice on upping your supply to help (mixed fed/ff so not much help on this here) - imho sleep and food very much linked

also don't worry so much re the sleeping from cold thing -dd didn't at 12 weeks but suddenly started to get it and drop off with less assistance from 14/15 weeks on -she is still not perfect so I view it as a work in progress. 12 weeks still very young .

[Neenztwinz]

You need to rest as much as you can, eat well and drink LOTS of water to boost your milk supply. Express as much as you can (I gave my twins EBM after bath and late evening and found it helped them settle). I found it better to express BEFORE feeds, especially in the mornings, got more out that way.

If he falls asleep during feeds, blow in his face or tickle his feet to try to rouse him a bit.

As for sleeping in the day, does he display signs of tiredness eg getting cranky, rubbing eyes? If so, when he does start to look tired, give him a cuddle and then put him in his cot/moses basket. My mantra was always 'I'll give them ten minutes' (twins), often they would settle themselves. If not I assumed they weren't tired after all. For him to learn to settle himself, he needs to cry it out for a while. 10-20 mins of crying does no harm IMO! You are right to want him to learn to self-settle.

[Neenztwinz]

Can your DH sleep in another room? Mine did for first 7 weeks cos it was just too tiring for him otherwise.

[mama2leah]

i moved ehr into the crib, by lettin ehr have a daytiem sleep in there..the first night was tough..it gets easier...jus dnt confuse the baby and brign him bak into ur bed if he is cryin alot...it takes 3 days to brea a habit i did it daytime...